Sunday

THE SUBLIME EVENT

Jean-François Lyotard in the essay ʻThe Sublime and the Avante-Gardeʼ sets up the formal condition of a state in which requires the loss or absence of a quality that is normally present in order to gain or comprehend an alternative perspective or way of analysis. (Lyotard, 1984:197)

The 'sublime event' itself lies not in the questioning of this realization but in this momentary lapse itself. The event can be difficult to articulate under conventional linguistic dimensions yet by acknowledging the mere occurrence of such a lapse we can begin to understand that the sublime event functions by fluctuating back and forth between the periphery and beyond the edge of our normal plane of consciousness.